In many sports, an important and fundamental skill acquired by athletes is the striking of a ball, such as the kicking of a soccer ball, the volleying of a volley ball, or the hitting of a baseball with a wooden or metallic bat. In these sports, young aspiring athletes are typically trained to develop effective techniques for striking the ball in their respective sports. In many instances, the athlete must be instructed by a coach who teaches and develops proper ball-striking techniques. However, many times the typical athlete is never taught the correct fundamentals of how to strike the ball properly, or the training is meager at best. Thus, many athletes expend a significant amount of time developing the proper skills to developing these ball-striking techniques, delaying or stunting development with regard to more advanced techniques. This may result in athletes being unable to truly reach their true potential in a given sport.
For instance, in soccer, the fundamentals for correctly kicking a soccer ball involve proper foot placement for both the plant foot as well as the kicking foot. This is particularly important when the soccer ball is not simply resting on the ground, but is in mid-air, as may commonly be the case during a typical soccer match. The amount of force, as well as the angle of attack on the ball are also primary considerations in the proper striking of the ball, particularly of a ball in mid-flight. Generally speaking, proper technique for kicking a soccer ball requires that the non-kicking “plant” foot needs to be next to the ball at the point of the kick. The ball joint of the plant foot is typically in line with the middle of the soccer ball, approximately three to six inches away. The plant leg is bent to a 45 degree angle about the knees, and the kicking foot is pointed straight out away from the body.
Many times, young athletes are not taught the proper techniques for kicking a soccer ball. For example, the plant foot may be placed at an incorrect distance from the ball, or the striking angle is consistently off center. Thus, the athlete may develop poor technique or tendencies which may hamper further development and require a substantial amount of time to correct. In many cases, the athlete may simply continue kicking the ball incorrectly, as there may be no one to provide proper instruction or guidance on how to properly kick the ball.
In other instances, a coach or trainer will provide instruction and guidance to the athlete as to the proper technique for kicking the soccer ball. However, this requires the active involvement of another individual who may be responsible for training several other athletes at the same time. Therefore, the athlete may not be able to obtain personalized training with the coach or trainer for an extended duration, and the athlete is left to train on an individual basis. In addition, athletes typically run into a set of other problems should they wish to train by themselves. For example, an athlete that simply wishes to practice his or her kicking technique may kick the ball, and then have to retrieve the ball immediately after kicking in order to kick the ball again. This is extremely time consuming if many repetitions are desired, as is normally the case for improving kicking technique. An athlete may reduce the time spent retrieving the ball by having a large number of practice soccer balls readily available. However, this solution is financially untenable for most individuals and does not address the problem of eventual ball retrieval.
An athlete may also choose to practice with another athlete, thereby cutting down on the ball retrieval aspect and may cooperatively train at a fast rate. However, many times an athlete may wish to train on an individual basis, or a partner is not conveniently available at the time the athlete wishes to train. Further, these training solutions do not allow the athlete to practice indoors, such as the living room of a home when the inclement weather forces cancellation of outdoor activities, or it is simply too dark to practice outside. As a result, while the athlete receiving guidance from an coach or trainer may benefit more than an athlete without such resources, the athlete receiving guidance may still not be developing proper kicking techniques to their maximum potential. Many of these deficiencies are also present in other sports where ball-striking techniques are critically important, and thus a solution to these deficiencies would potentially be applicable in these other sports.
Furthermore, while apparatuses for ball-striking training have been previously introduced, they have lacked the capability to allow an athlete to self-train in a controlled, repeatable fashion wherein the ball will rotate in a controlled, circular orbit when struck correctly yet rotate in a non-circular orbit when struck incorrectly, thereby providing immediate feedback to the athlete as to the athlete's ball-striking technique. What is therefore needed in the field of ball-striking training is a portable training apparatus that allows an athlete to properly train the kicking of a soccer ball in mid-flight on an individual basis and provides immediate feedback as to whether the athlete is practicing proper kicking technique in striking the soccer ball.